and Shepard's ex-wife. In 1966, The Village Voice called it the "official oasis of the East Village"; it was known as a "hippie hangout". Abbie Hoffman gathered people for his 1967 protest at the New York Stock Exchange at Gem Spa, Allen Ginsberg called it a "nerve center" of the city, and the Art Workers' Coalition had their offices above the store. Robert Mapplethorpe bought Patti Smith an egg cream there shortly after she moved to New York in 1967. In the late 60s it was midway between two other iconic venues, the Fillmore East and the Electric Circus. The owner in 1971 was Irving Stein. That year Village Voice reported "A permanent cluster of junkies using its doorways and newspaper benches as home base hasn't helped business any" and the store was closed for a time from February 1972 when it ran into financial trouble and the counter-culture that had helped support it collapsed. The storefront caught fire that May, but it reopened that June with new management. The owner as of 2015 was Ray Patel, who was born in the early 1940s in Gujarat, India. He ran the store with his wife and bought the store in 1986, when he replaced one brick wall with glass. He did no advertising and relied instead on word of mouth. He learned making egg creams from the previous Italian owner, who in turn learned it from his Jewish predecessor. The store manager Salim said in 2010 that only four people knew the recipe. Patel's daughter Parul, a former Morgan Stanley financial advisor, took over the business from her father in 2018 because he was suffering from Parkinson's disease. Gem Spa merchandise was introduced for the first time in 2019, and its T-shirt became popular. So much so that Eater magazine called it the "Hottest Look in Streetwear" just a couple of days after Fashion Week ended in September 2019, after it caught the attention of fashion influencers like former Calvin Klein model Remy Holwick and designer Kyle Brincefield of Studmuffin NYC. While efforts to save it were underway, in May 2020, Gem Spa closed permanently, due to lack of business from the COVID-19 pandemic. After its closure, Gem Spa announced it would continue to operate an online store selling branded merchandise. In popular culture Gem Spa is featured on the back cover of the first album by the seminal punk rockers,